Tamarisk Farm is a mixed organic farm of about 600 acres of high pH heavy clay facing southwest and sloping down to the sea immediately behind the Chesil Beach in Lyme Bay. The family has farmed here since 1960, starting then with the organic market garden and evolving to the present form. The market garden is now about 6 acres of fruit and vegetable in the centre of the village. We have about 130 acres in arable rotation of which about one half is in corn in any one year. The rest of the land is in long term pasture or scrub and other semi natural habitats. Grazing this land we have a flock of Dorset Down cross sheep, a herd of North Devon "Ruby Red" cattle and horses and ponies for work and pleasure. There is also holiday accommodation and some basic chalets for short term workers. Tamarisk Farm supports two families, occasional casual workers and "volunteers". We sell meat (beef, lamb, mutton & hogget), vegetables and wholemeal flour (wheat and rye) in our farm shop; finished and store cattle, finished and store lambs and cereals.
The whole farm is organic and consists of 200 acres of permanent pasture at Cogden rented from the National Trust since 1995 and managed primarily for conservation and the original 180 acres of Tamarisk Farm and the 220 acres of Labour-in-Vain farm, rented from the National Trust since 1999 which both include permanent pastures, arable in rotation and varied semi-natural habitats. Field sizes are mainly below 15 acres with arable units below about 9 acres, mostly separated by substantial hedges. We have a substantial CSS agreement and enjoy very helpful working relationships with Dorset Heritage Coast in managing footpaths, with the Dorset Wildlife Trust and with the National Trust.
We maintain a variety of small but linked enterprises to provide a buffer against the weather and the market and to make life interesting. Conservation is a thread which runs through all of them.
Farm management has built upon the benefits and knowledge of 40 years of organic husbandry. With sensitive management and using no herbicides, pesticides or artificial fertilisers a diverse flora and fauna has been encouraged. We have involved experts to supplement our knowledge with their observations and so have a clearer picture of the most important conservation issues on our farm; particular specialists involved cover plants, birds, moths, dragonflies, dormice, amphibians and reptiles. The farm includes the following habitats of local and national significance: reed bed, unimproved native pasture (calcareous grassland with maritime influence), wet meadow, scrub, ponds, rock outcrops and dry-stone walls. Within the diverse flora and fauna the more noteworthy include: several unusual arable weeds, nine species of orchids, nit grass, adder's tongue fern, dormouse, Great Crested Newts, adder, grass snake, lizard, water vole, sky lark, nightingale, Chetti's warbler, small eggar moth, several species of bat and 9 different birds of prey resident or present intermittently. This area is thought to harbour the best metapopulation of Great Crested Newts in Dorset and for this reason is being proposed for SAC status.
The current debate, fueled by the recent Curry Report about the role of farming in national life, often uses the concept of "park keeper" in a derogatory sense. We would rather see ourselves as custodians, producing quality food and a quality environment as an integrated whole, and we maintain many public and permitted footpaths and some open access areas to encourage responsible access with minimum disruption. The non farming public have a legitimate right to access to the countryside, and for the urban majority this is an important safety valve. To sustain this a farm must be economically viable, and food produced in this way is inevitably more costly. This cost must be shared, either through higher prices or through taxation in some form. At present this is achieved through the CSS Scheme.
Our enthusiasm for conservation as an integral part of our farming comes from varied motives:
1. Philosophy. As custodians of the land we try to use it for the common good. We aim to produce quality food in a sustainable manner, provide access for others as much as is possible and maintain natural diversity for the future.
2. Aesthetics. A diverse and healthy environment gives us and visitors much pleasure.
3. Obligation. We are in an AONB on a Heritage Coast with SSSIs and a Nature Reserve. We have a legal and moral obligation to conserve these for the whole of society.
4. Economic. Visitors to our holiday cottages and volunteer workers come partly because of the quality of our landscape and habitat diversity. Work is generated and through the CSS Scheme we are able to pay ourselves for the labour of tree and hedge planting, hedge laying and stonewalling. In due course well managed reed bed may produce thatching reed. We sold seed from native pasture which has been used for reseeding other sites.
5. Practical farming. Biodiversity leads to a variety of habitats housing predators of pests, a wide botanical variety for healthy grazing, woodland for fuel and hedging stakes and scrub and hedges for shelter for stock. Ponds provide a secure water supply for market garden and stock.